As An Editor She Was No Figurehead

Colleagues Recall Her Talents And Warmth

May 22, 1994|By John Blades , Tribune Staff Writer.

When she was ready to join the work force, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was drawn to publishing for what she called the "obvious reasons." Listing those reasons for Publishers Weekly a year ago, Onassis explained: "I'd majored in literature, I had many friends in publishing, I love books, I've known writers all my life."

An editor at Doubleday since 1978 (and at Viking for three years before that), Onassis was not attracted by the sybaritic perks-the publishing parties and lunches that occupy and preoccupy so many other Manhattan book editors. According to Marly Rusoff, Doubleday vice president, Onassis would usually eat lunch at her desk the three days a week she came to the office.

"I would come in to talk to her," Rusoff said, "and without fail she would open up her little lunch packet and offer to share it with me. It was not what you'd call a hearty lunch, usually a few carrot or celery sticks, but she was always gracious about sharing."

Not simply a figurehead who acquired books and left the editing to assistants, Onassis was a "real, honest-to-God senior editor," said Stephen Rubin, president and publisher of Doubleday. She worked with three assistants, what Rubin called the "Onassis SWAT Team," and "really got her hands dirty."

Onassis acquired and edited about 12 books a year, most of which, she told Publishers Weekly, "are out of our regular experience. Books of other cultures, ancient histories. . . . To me, a wonderful book is one that takes me on a journey into something I didn't know before."

Among the books that she edited were "The Last Tsar," by Edvard Radzinsky, "Stanford White's New York," by David Garrard Lowe and "The Cairo Trilogy," by the Nobel Prize-winning Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz. On the lighter side, she edited Michael Jackson's "Moonwalk" and four children's books by singer Carly Simon. At her death, she had completed work on "The Three Golden Keys," by Czech artist Peter Sis, for October publication.

At Onassis' suggestion, a reluctant Bill Moyers recycled his television documentaries into two books, "Healing and the Mind" and "The Power of Myth." After both books became best sellers, Moyers said, "I'll never say no again if she thinks there's a book in anything I do."

Onassis called Loyola University psychology professor Eugene Kennedy very early one morning 19 years ago to propose a book about Mayor Richard J. Daley. "It was quite a surprise to pick up the phone and hear that unmistakable voice," recalled Kennedy, who wrote not only the Daley book ("Himself") but also three novels that Onassis edited.

"She had a novelist's appreciation of life, in a certain sense," Kennedy observed. "There was very little she had not experienced in the way human beings really are, and she looked on the human condition with a certain melancholy understanding and tragic sense, which was enlivened by a very active sense of humor."

When Rusoff arrived at Doubleday four years ago, her first encounter with Onassis was at the copying machine. "I was having some trouble, and she offered to help.

"There was something very warm about her," Rusoff said. "There was never any sense that she wanted special privileges or that she tried to keep people away."

Onassis continued to keep office hours until two months ago. "She had an amazing amount of energy and dignity," said Doubleday's Rubin, "and never any self-pity, ever."